The itch

November 19, 2019freyathewriter 2 Comments

I seem to have been away for a few… years?!

Potted history – bereavement, illness, lost relationships, gained relationships, stress, joy, angst.

Life.

And then the ‘itch’. After receiving a few emails from NaNoWriMo and the women’s writing magazine Mslexia, after inadvertently opening and reading an old short story of mine on my laptop rather than another document, after picking up and reading a collection of short stories I had contributed to… the ‘itch’ could no longer be ignored.

I’ve picked up a dystopian novel I started writing way before Brexit – the plot is bizarrely prescient in some ways. It doesn’t tackle Brexit – but there are themes there that I wonder how I picked up on at the time.

It’s too irresistible to ignore.

And so I appear to be back, at least in some form or other.

Did you miss me?

Malakhi

December 25, 2016freyathewriter 2 Comments

A teacher, a rabbi came to this earth

courtesy of a star, a manger and a virgin birth.

Ages before, despite the temple’s destruction

oil of one day stretched out to eight –

– imagine the miracle!

Hope lights our times, shadows flee in their wake

Hanukkah, Christmas in one time combined.

Faiths diverge but converge all the same

in their wishes for peace and love and brotherhood,

if you can cut through the soundbites and posturing, that is.

I am a mongrel, one foot in the Deep Mid Winter of my past

My heart swelling to Baruch Hu as I whisper Kaddish in memory.

Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya

Bitter sweet at this time of disruption

For all that is gone, for all that has broken

For all that divides in words left unspoken.

Amen.

Shalom.

Salaam.

Shalom Aleichem.

As Salaam Aleikum

Oseh shalom bim’romav hu ya’aseh shalom

Let us welcome the Malakhi, in whatever form he – or she – takes.

******

It’s been a while. Longer than I thought. Life, you know?

Last night saw the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve – two miracles for the price of one. It inspired me to take some time during a small oasis of calm to share my thoughts, my feelings, to highlight just a tiny slice of the similarities in the underlying hopes of the three Abrahamix religions, not to mention in some of the words used in greetings and wishes bestowed.

Yes, it’s probably a bit clumsy (I’ve not written for a while) – but it’s all me.

Whatever faith you follow or not, I send my love to you, my brothers and sisters in this messed-up, argumentative worldwide family of ours.